Beowulf - clark.bengalenglish.org

1
Beowulf

• Anglo-Saxon Poetry
• Notes by Don Pogreba and Diane More

2
Beowulf The Manuscript

• One manuscript in which Beowulf has survived to
  the present day.
• nearly destroyed in a fire in 1731
• wasnt until 1845 that efforts were made to
  preserve the text
• The manuscript dates to about 1000 CE,
• Exact date is unknown
• Most scholars assume the poem was written in
  about the 800s in England
• describes vaguely historical events in
  Scandinavia from the period between 450-600 CE.
• Was originally dismissed as a piece of valuable
  literature.
• Most critics said the work had no literary merit,
  and studied it for its historical value.
• J.R.R. Tolkien reversed this view with his
  influential lecture in 1936, The Monster and Its
  Critics.

dailymail.co.uk
3

• King of the Geats,
• Beowulf leaves home to help Hrothgar, King of the
  Danes

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Alliterative Verse

• Instead of rhyme or meter, Anglo-Saxon poetry
  relies on alliteration
• Lines are divided into two halves with a caesura
  in the middle.
• The halves are tied together by alliteration
• Some translations omit this in favor of meaning.

• Hwæt! We Gardena         in geardagum,
• þeodcyninga,         þrym gefrunon,
• hu ða æþelingas         ellen fremedon.
• Oft Scyld Scefing         sceaþena þreatum,
• monegum mægþum,         meodosetla ofteah,
• egsode eorlas.         Syððan ærest wearð
• feasceaft funden,         he þæs frofre gebad,
• weox under wolcnum,         weorðmyndum þah,
• oðþæt him æghwylc         þara ymbsittendra ofer
• hronrade         hyran scolde,
• gomban gyldan.         þæt wæs god cyning!

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Kennings

• Compound poetic phrases substituted for the usual
  name of a person or thing
• Whale-road (Ocean)
• Slaughter-dew (blood)
• Spear-din (battle)
• Common in Old English and Norse epics
• Help with alliteration
• Often rely on mythological stories for added
  meaning
• Can be combined for greater effect
• Slaughter dew worm dance (bloody battle to the
  death)

Anglo-Saxon hall http//www.bbc.co.uk/schools/prim
aryhistory/anglo_saxons/stories_and_pastimes/
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Christian Elements

• The inclusion of God or Christ as the object of
  praise/worship.
• 53 times in the entire poem
• Biblical allusions
• The Flood
• The concept of Grendel as the descendant of Cain.
• The poet argues that Grendel was, like all
  monsters, descended from the cursed son of Adam
  and Eve.

http//cookit.e2bn.org/historycookbook/28-325-Life
-in-saxons-vikings.html
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Norse Elements

• Role of Protection
• Norse Society was based on loose political
  relationships.
• A powerful warrior (a thane) would lead a group
  of warriors and their families.
• Often hereditary, but loose
• A weak thane could easily lose his warriors.
• Warrior Culture.
• The final goal for every warrior was to be
  defeated in battle.
• Death by old age was not preferred
• Only warriors who were killed in battle were
  accepted in Valhalla, the warrior heaven in
  Norse mythology.

http//pagan.wikia.com/wiki/Valhalla
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Litotes

• Figure of speech in which understatement is
  employed for rhetorical effect
• An idea is expressed by a denial of its opposite,
  often employing double negatives
• To say that something is attractive, we might say
  its not unattractive.
• Good Not Bad
• Like Not unlike
• Old Not as young as she used to be

http//solo1y.tumblr.com/post/2769650803
http//literaryzone.com/?p143
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Epithets

• Descriptive terms accompanying or occurring in
  place of a name
• William the Conqueror
• Star Crossd Lovers
• Discreet Telemachus
• Often make use of repeated/stock phrases (clichés)

http//www.glogster.com/glog.php?glog_id1704009s
cale54isprofiletrue
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Lof

• Difficult to translate
• Old English for a man's good name on others' lips
• 'fame, praise,' or dom, loosely meaning 'the good
  judgment of others,'
• related to the verb 'deem
• The final goal of the heroic life.
• It is no accident that the last word of the poem
  should be lof-geornost 'most eager for fame.'

http//meggardiner.wordpress.com/2007/12/18/beowul
f/
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Wyrd

• "To achieve a place in such a world, a nobleman
  had to rely on his own personal strength, which
  is always an ambiguous force for others' good. .
  . . The Anglo-Saxons believed that life was a
  struggle against insuperable odds and that a
  man's wyrd or 'lot' would be what it would be. .
  . . . Even in early pagan days, they do not seem
  to have believed in a supernatural conception of
  Destiny. Wyrd originally meant simply 'what
  happens' . . . . Perhaps it was precisely
  because. . . life was potentially meaningless,
  that they looked to the heroic notion of personal
  fame to find the strength to resist wyrd. The
  Anglo-Saxons had an incomparable sense of the
  transience and pointlessness of mortal life. Only
  a man's name lived on, and then only in the
  mouths of others, usually the poets."

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Epic Hero Cycle

• Reasonably predictable series of events that
  happen to heroes across cultures in poems like
  this.
• General requirements of the epic hero cycle
• A charge, from a god or someone else to take on a
  quest/mission
• A test, to determine ones worthiness to complete
  the task
• A mentor, to guide the seeker in his/her quest.
• Helpers (animal, human, or mystical) to assist in
  the quest
• A Main Antagonist, often supernatural
• A Magical/Unreal World visited by the hero that
  others are not able to enter
• An Escape from the Quest, where the hero
  questions his commitment
• A Resurrection, where the hero seems to return
  from death or a death-like state
• And a Restoration, where a character is restored
  to a rightful place.

http//waveguidefluorescentsensor.cold10.com/heros
-journey-in-literature.php